The Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Ages is More Influential Than You Think



The Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Ages & Oracle of Seasons are often grouped together much like a Pokémon game, but that’s a disservice to what they achieve separately. Join Jon as he shows just what makes Oracle of Ages a classic that still influences Zelda games to this day!

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20 thoughts on “The Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Ages is More Influential Than You Think”

  1. You didn't mention the extra dungeon in the Hero's Cave you get when you link! That's a big deal, and it's quite hard.

    Also, the reason Ages has so many color themed puzzles is because if I recall correctly Color was originally supposed to be the Wisdom Oracle game's main mechanic, and the Time elements were adopted from the third Courage Oracle game.

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  2. Let's appreciate how the GVG guys made two separate videos about the two games and released on the same day just like how Oracle of Seasons and Oracle of Ages were released. Such an original idea

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  3. I had no idea that the guy who directed these games also went on to direct big 3D Zeldas. That's really cool; I kinda just assumed that some Capcom team worked on Zelda a few times and that was it, but with how many Zelda games they made together, I now feel silly for not thinking that at least some of them would want to continue working on the series.

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  4. This was the second game boy game I bought because I remember thinking that it looked a lot like Pokemon. I never managed to finish it as a kid but I instantly fell in love with it and Zelda became a special series for me.

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  5. I love this game. Definitely more than Oracle of Seasons, the puzzles just felt more fun to me. Ralph, Nayru, Maple, Moosh, Ricky and Dimitri were such cool characters and I wish we could see them again

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  6. This was my first Zelda game. I was a bit too young to understand it well, so I never finished it. I didn't properly get into the series until Wind Waker.

    Nonetheless, Oracle of Ages will always be special to me because it introduced me to my favorite series.

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  7. I only really got into these games after the Link's Awakening Switch release, which I played right after playing the original for the first time. I think the Oracle games have really amazing new mechanics and build on Link's Awakening really well. I think their structure leaves much to be desired. You touch on the dungeons suffering and imo that's the biggest disappointment outside of a few standouts like Mermaid's cave and Jabu Jabu. The dungeons in both Oracle games are divided into a bunch of linear segments and you don't have as much choice in the order to do them as you would think. You pick a direction at a fork in the dungeon and then everything after that point is linear. The dungeons in Link's Awakening were mostly wide open, with a lot of variations on the critical path. The different segments could interweave with each other, offering lots of ways to explore the space. The overworld similarly suffers from being so linearly segmented. I think it's alright if some dungeons and overworld areas are like that, but it's too often the case in the Oracle games. The Minish Cap also does this a lot but its more wide open environments and smoother movement makes it much more palatable to me.

    It's still impressive what a new team brought to Zelda in their first try. I think it would be a challenge to remake these games for more than just the link feature. Modernizing a lot of the design choices like they did in Link's Awakening has the potential to break a lot of puzzles and movement. I think more liberties would have to be taken but I do think the linear segmented structure would be fine with modern movement and controls.

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